Well, space cowboys and space cowgirls, I think we've come to the end of this particular road. While there is still more joy to be gleaned from the Firefly universe, I don't want to pick the corpse clean, if'n you get my meaning. So this is likely the last Firefly Friday you'll see. You'll note that said "likely"—much like Joss Whedon's one-season wonder, we just might rise again.
As a parting gift, I leave you with this, as crystalline a codification of what Firefly is all about as any clip we've run. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
As a show, Firefly does lots of things. It makes you laugh, cheer, cry, go out and buy a long brown duster and pick fights on Unification Day. But every now and again, Firefly also makes you scared. And not with gooey make-up or "boo-something's-in-the-mirror" camera gooses. Just with a man, the bounty hunter Jubal Early, making his intentions crystal clear.
And damned if Jewel Staite doesn't act her ass off.
It would be, should be so easy to hate Jayne Cobb. He's a lout, a turncoat, a profiteer of other folks' misfortune; he's crude, rude, and lewd...and he probably smells funny. But he's always good in a fight and always good for a laugh.
Okay, I'll admit it right here, right now. I didn't initially get hooked on Mad Men because it's good (which it is). Or because it's a pitch-perfect evocation of bygone, smoke-filled era in which men were men and top shelf was the elixir of life (again, which it is). No, I first tuned in because I heard that Christina Hendricks was on it. Whom I've been slightly smitten with (actually, slightly is a slight understatement) since I first spied her as Saffron on, yes, Firefly.
If I've gotta be thrown into certain danger and almost killed by a deviously delicious fictional ex-wife, she's at the top of my list.
Note: It's always kind of weird drinking with a dude you've seen naked. I mean, it's already weird if he's famous and ruggedly handsome and carved from a marbled chunk of awesome. It's just... weirder.
Never crocheted a damn thing? Perhaps you and I should start. Turns out crocheters are our people, if by our people you mean obsessive Joss Whedon fans. Get this:
The founder of Crochetme.com, Kim Werker, is launching a grassroots campaign to interview Whedon after he joked in a recent interview that the buzz for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has yet to hit the pages of Crocheting Monthly. (Thanks to Craftzine.com, and my friend Eva, for the tip.) Werker makes a great case for why Whedon should speak to her people: For starters, there's a year-old group on the knit and crochet website Ravelry for fans of his work — called Whedoknitters & Crocheters. It currently has 979 members. The Big Damn Knitters, the site's group for Serenity/Firefly "knitfans," has 1,916 members. Both groups proudly handmake hats like the one Firefly badass Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin, pictured) wore. (CrochetMe has a free pattern.)
Sorry, gang. I got all wrapped up in the San Diego Comic-Con's highs and lows, joys and heartbreak (okay, not so much heartbreak) and I forgot to deliver a Firefly Friday for y'all. My apologies. And I didn't remember until Saturday night, at the EW/Sci Fi Comic-Con party, when Nathan Fillion and his brother showed me how to drink beer from an iPhone.
So, here's a make-good, brought to you by Captain Tightpants himself.
There are times, not many, mind you, when I wish that they'd hired Joss Whedon to write and direct the American big-screen remake of La Femme Nikita—you remember it, right? The lame-ass Point of No Return, with Bridget Fonda? (Maybe it's better if you don't remember it.)
Because, clearly, Joss knows a little something about waif-like girls who just happen to be killing machines...
It's almost as if he puts so much thought into the extra-legal ways he obtains his shiny treasure, he doesn't have much thought left for concealing it.
When people ask me why I'm such an evangelist for this show, this is the sort of thing I point them to.
Because Firefly, like every Joss Whedon show, isn't about the action, or the funny, or the incredibly attractive people doing incredibly awesome things. It's about family, and how those without a family of their own band together to make one.
Nothing brings friends together like team torture.
Seriously, this just one example of Firefly's masterful writing: Even though the dialogue has Mal all but threatening Wash at every turn, we can tell that Mal is keeping him angry to keep him alive. (And the performances don't hurt, either.)
There comes a time in every employee's career when they've got to face the harsh light of "the performance review." Or, in Jayne's case, the harsh cold of absolute zero.
The third Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses (SC3) kicks off today
at Henderson State University in Arkansas. It's not the first scholarly gathering devoted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remember speaking to Joss Whedon in 2002, about a UK academic conference called Blood, Text, and Fears. He said he wished he could be there to hear the live debate on the paper titled "The Spike/Buffy Relationship: Law, Morals, Rape and S&M; or
You Always Hurt the One You Love." Still, more than 90 papers will be presented at SC3, which covers BtVS, Angel, Firefly, and Whedon's film career. You can check out the program on the conference's site. Which titles speak to you? My picks:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: • "'When You Kiss Me, I Want to Die': Gothic Relationships and Social Taboos on BtVS"
• "A Sexy Fuddy-Duddy and a Woman Who Knows How to Moisturize: Adulthood, Authority, and Sex in BtVS" [Giles and Joyce!!!]
• "'Kicking Ass Is Comfort Food': Girlie Feminism, Violence, and the Slayer"
• "... And Yet': The Limitations of Buffy’s Feminism" • "'It's Just... Painful': Love and the Wounded Vampire" • "The Buffy-Riley Leitmotif and Musical Evidence for the Romantic Conflation of Angel and Riley" [No idea what that means, really, but I like the word conflation.] • "'Here Endeth the Lesson': Spike's Torturous Romances and Life Laid Bare"
• "'You Let Him Domesticate You': Anya/Anyanka and Insensitive Interpretations of Consumer and Domestic Stereotypes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" • "Lies My Mother Told Me: Moms and Offspring in the Buffyverse. Is Death the Only Gift Mothers Can Give?" • "'It's Only Our Methods That Differ. We Use the Latest in Scientific Technology and State-of-the-Art Weaponry, and You... Poke Them with a Sharp Stick': Various Methods for Teaching with Buffy" [There are teachers and professors who use Buffy in the classroom? AWESOME.]
I've had a lot of mechanics. Seriously: I once had an '83 Mercedes Benz with almost 200,000 miles on it, and "Rudy" — as I fondly named her — required more care than a newborn puppy. But none of my mechanics were as awesome as Kaylee. Or as cute.
(Just to be clear: I don't mean to demean Kaylee by calling her a "wench." I just liked the alliterative rhyme.)
(Yes, that's two Jayne-centric clips in a row. So? Besides, this episode was written by the great madman Ben Edlund, who created The Tick. Which is almost as awesome as Firefly. The animated version, that is. As you were.)
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Never crocheted a damn thing? Perhaps you and I should start. Turns out crocheters are our people, if by our people you mean obsessive Joss Whedon fans. Get this:
The third 
